1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle seat, and in particular, the invention is directed to a vehicle seat including front and rear links which are vertically movable to allow for adjustment in height of seats, the seat being so arranged as to absorb an excessive great impact to be caused therein in the case of rear-end collision.
2. Description of Prior Art
In general, a rear-end collision may be defined to be one of the following two cases: a case where a vehicle collides against a rear side of another vehicle running ahead thereof; and a case where a vehicle running backwards collides at the rear side thereof against another vehicle or something hard. In any of such rear-end collisions, an upper body portion of seat occupant on a seat of the vehicle is abruptly and quickly displaced under inertia to a seat back of the seat, with an excessive great load being applied from the seat occupant to the seat back. This means that an excessive great impact is directly given to the seat back and further imparted to a seat cushion of the seat.
Suppose now that the rear-end collision occurs to a vehicle seat having a seat cushion frame very rigid in the entirety thereof enough to withstand the foregoing excessive great impact. In that case, it is highly possible for the excessive great impact to be intensively imparted to a relatively brittle mechanical part or mechanisms, such as a reclining device. Considering such defective aspect, as commonly done in the art, a deformable area is defined in a predetermined point in either the seat cushion frame or the seat back frame, so that, upon the excessive great impact being imparted to the seat cushion frame, the deformable area is quickly deformed to absorb the excessive great impact, thereby avoiding excessive stress intensively caused in the reclining device or other brittle mechanisms.
Examples of the foregoing impact absorption arrangement include: an impact absorption arrangement in a lateral frame member of seat back frame, as disclosed in the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-132767 or JP 7-132767 A; and an impact absorption arrangement in a lateral fame member of seat cushion frame, as disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 7,360,832.
According to the JP 7-132767, predetermined localized areas in the lateral frame member of seat back frame are so formed to have deformable regions of a wavy cross-section, so that, in the case of rear-end collision, such wavy deformable regions, upon receiving an excessive great load, are buckled or collapsed to absorb a corresponding excessive great impact. On the other hand, the U.S. Pat. No. 7,360,832 teaches a rectangular or closed cross-section configuration of seat cushion frame's lateral frame member and an opened cross-section area defined in that closed cross-section structure, so that, upon an excessive great load being applied to the seat in the case of rear-end collision, a localized wall region of the seat cushion frame's lateral frame member at such opened cross-section area is deformed to thereby absorb a corresponding excessive great impact.
However, the foregoing conventional impact absorption arrangements are not simple in structure and thus require processes forming the complicated deformable areas as well as the peripheral areas around the deformable areas, which in turn requires troublesome designs and adjustments to determine a proper deformabiltiy of the deformable areas and also increases costs involved.